The Spymaster of Baghdad audiobook

It's been so long since I've read a great book about my home country Iraq like this one. Through her writing style, the author narrated the story of the secret spy cell against ISIS skillfully. I wanted to finish the book in one sitting, has life not got in the way. It's that good. She mastered describing the culture and politics of Iraq, most importantly the people of Iraq. As an Iraqi myself, I think she nailed it. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in the Middle East politics and affairs. It's a great mirror into how Iraqis have endured a lot of pain and how their resilience and love for their country encourage them to fight the terror group. It's also a mirror into seeing how skillful those terrorists were and how sophisticated their approach was. Even better, it's a mirror into the heads of some Iraqis who unfortunately fell victim to hate and how they turned from being great citizens to terrorists. It's an eyeopener. If you've ever loved any of the late legendary journalist Anthony Shadid's work, then you'll love this one too. Margaret Coker brings life to the suffering, resilience and heroism of the Iraqi people as they go one with their lives in the wake of wars and terrorism.

The book contains acts of valor that every Iraqi must know about. The spy master of BaghdadA book about the falcons intelligence cell that had a vital impact on isis plans and played a crucial part in turning the tide in the war against the radicals and the story of Harith Al-Sudani the spy who infiltrated isis barracks. The author wrote the book in an exciting and precisely detailed novel style telling a story from 3 point of views which will cross-roads later. Abu Ali Al-basri the godfather of the falcons, Harith and Muthana 2 spies from the cell, Abrar Al Kubaise one of isis most dangerous chemical scientists. Finally the book is based on true events that we lived through and focuses on intelligent stuff rather than political. Many of the info and operations were classified until 2018 when the ministry of Interior declassified it for the press.

Brutal, complex, riveting, and devastating - a phenomenal look into the recent horrors of the Islamic State in modern Iraq, and the bravery of those that stood against it. Coker’s storytelling here is outstanding. Her ability to weave together the intricacies of this true story with real heart is as insightful as it is stirring. There’s a lot to digest here, and this is a read I’ll be thinking about for a long time. One question that persists in my mind after finishing: what is the cost of valor?

** spoiler alert ** This was a great read. I was really impressed with the amount of research that the author did to have such a well rounded story. The heavy amount of research made this a pretty dense book that allowed me to learn a lot about Iraqi history that I had little knowledge of prior to reading. Harith’s story breaks my heart. I keep thinking about the photo of him in Lebanon near the water that his brother took and think that he deserved more. It’s really sad that his family had no knowledge of who Harith really was until after he died. Reading about how his father began to blame himself and how Harith’s wife regretted their last conversation was really hard to read. He is such an unsung hero of Iraq, and I’m grateful that I was able to learn about him. I’m also grateful to learn about the accompanying unsung heroes like Abu Ali and the rest of the Falcons. They had such a thankless job even though their success allowed a changing of tides to take place in the war. I thought the story of Abrar was really captivating. It showed how someone who is seemingly normal can have a long and slow ideological transition into that of ISIS. The themes of honor and shame throughout the book may seem foreign to a westerner, but they are important to understand in order to understand eastern culture. It makes me want to understand honor and shame more to better relate to this culture. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a thought provoking read that allowed me to learn about something that I otherwise wouldn’t have learned about. 5/5

One of the best books I've read in years. You have to remind yourself it's non fiction.

Utterly gripping and impossible to put down. At the heart of Coker's excellent account of an elite Iraqi intelligence unit and its efforts to bring down ISIS are two brothers, one of whom volunteered to infiltrate an ISIS cell as an undercover agent and the other who served as his handler. It's an incredible tale of courage, determination and sacrifice, and an absolutely engrossing read.

Fascinating, hard to put down. Reads like a spy thriller. We never really hear much of the Iraqi side of their recent history of war and violence. This is the perfect account.

This is page-turner non-fiction - not subtle, not packed with evidence or context - and it was such fun to read. Coker has tightened her focus around a small cast of characters and, mostly, one mission: to stop bombings in Baghdad. The tight focus tells only a few stories, but they illustrate various aspects of Baghdadi society. Coker introduces several ISIS members as well, and based on interviews, it reconstructs their stories. There is a lot of grief in this book.There is not a lot of politics - but you can see the lines where it goes. Coker comments little on why the Americans are there. She takes a dispassionate tone around motives where necessary - explaining, for example, that the tight focus on defeating Iran led directly to coopting Baathist security officers in preference to training Shiá officers. The generalised exploitation of sectarian differences is shown with devastating effect.But perhaps the most astounding part of this book is how much the intelligence efforts of a decade ago came down to a small, underfunded unit of men who barely owned a computer, and certainly, no smartphones - working occasionally with billion-dollar operations led out of Washington. ISIS is adept at online recruiting, but the leadership operate entirely without technology, making all Pentagon's killer toys largely useless. Instead, this relies on men using skills the American's simply don't have. Coker wants you to feel the heroism here, and she certainly succeeds.

#ThespymasterofBaghdad - Margaret Coker#viking (#penguinrandomhouse)Until I first read the subtitle ‘The untold story of the elite intelligence cell that turned the tide against ISIS’ I had no idea that that such cell even existed. I was thus also unaware of the fact that the cell was (and still is) known as al-Suquor (The Falcon) and that it was the brain child of a man whose name I have never heard before, Abu Ali al-Basri. This book is their story.In post-Hussein Iraq chaos reigned and Baghdad became known as the murder capitol of the world. The US appointed new leader, Mohammed al-Shahwani, supported by the CIA funded mukhabarat, operated parallel to the Iraqi intelligence agency, reporting to the minister of the interior. The Shiite militias ruled in certain areas of the city and the Sunni were suddenly uprooted and ousted from the protective bubbles in which they existed under Hussein. The first democratically elected prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was in charge of Force 54, his Praetorian Guard, also known as the Baghdad Brigade. The subsequent Sunni-oppression created the perfect breeding ground for Al Qaeda agitators whispering to disgruntled Sunni’s that they should rise up against the Shiite al-Maliki government, resulting in the entry of the militant group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: ISIS. Baghdad has become a war zone.Nouri al-Maliki became aware that his political career would be at an end if he could not curb the violence and terrorism executed against the residents of Baghdad. He thus instructed an Iraqi who lived in exile in Sweden for more than two decades to create an elite intelligence cell to combat Al Qaeda. This man was Abu Ali al-Basri. And the cell became known as al-Suquor; The Falcon.The book tells the astonishing true story of al-Basri and his tiny Falcon-unit (they started operating with a team of only twelve men) and how they successfully thwarted dozens of planned attacks in and around Baghdad. Their ultimate claim to fame is, without a doubt, the neutralizing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on 27 October 2019; the man known for his blitzkrieg across southern Syria and northern Iraq in 2014, resulting in ISIS capturing territory equivalent to the size of the UK. After he proclaimed himself caliph, a 5 year reign of terror followed. Internationally the authorities stood helpless; sophisticated technology and electronic surveillance become useless when searching for someone who leaves no digital footprint.The Falcons, under the leadership of al-Basri, did what nobody else could do: they successfully infiltrated ISIS. Al-Basri and two brothers, Halith and Munaf al-Sudani (the former later known as Agent 31) were the key players in this real life drama of espionage; double agents and daily danger. The author of the book, Margaret Coker, was the former Baghdad Burea Chief for the New York Times. She is an investigative journalist and has lived and worked in Iraq and the wider Middle East since 2008. Abu Ali al-Basri allowed her to interview him whilst she was doing research for this book and the result is a chilling account of exceptional bravery by a few men whose names are barely known - but who deserve to be remembered as heroes.The book brought the characters to life; the main role players are introduced to the reader in their childhood days; paving the way for the reader to develop empathy with their battles and choices; they become flesh and blood heroes; much more than mere hard to pronounce names on paper. Their story should be told.5 stars from #Uitdieperdsebek

Thought provoking, sad, and horrifying look into the Islamic State in Iraq told through these stories of the unsung heroes of this war. The stories of these men were heart wrenching yet beautiful. Really deep dive into the history of Iraq and left me needing the dictionary feature on my kindle often but learned so much. Left me thinking a lot about honor and shame, valor, loyalty, the price of life, and so much more. Dense but worth it

I know very little about ISIS, outside what I hear on TV. Part of this book covers an inside look at an Iraqi soldier who went undercover in ISIS and the challenges that he and his team members faced.

The iconic golden dome of Samarra's famed al-Askari Shrine came crashing down in a matter of moments in the early morning hours of February 22, 2006. With its destruction, everything changed for Iraq.The work of al-Qaeda saboteurs, the calculated blast culminated years of factional violence targeting Iraq's Shiite majority in the bloody aftermath of the 2003 American-led invasion.It had the desired effect.Before nightfall, the tit-for-tat sectarian brutality that had been simmering across Iraq since the U.S. war began deteriorated into a kind of fratricidal anarchy, something resembling civil war.The capital city of Baghdad, for example, quickly found itself pockmarked by concrete blast walls and bisected by a myriad of guarded checkpoints. The formerly mixed city became increasingly divided along denominational lines with Sunni insurgent groups and Shiite religious militias sowing chaos in the security vacuum.It was around this time, during some of Iraq's darkest days in recent memory, the nation teetering on the edge of the abyss, that a former longtime exile was plucked from obscurity by then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and tasked – against seemingly insurmountable odds – with staunching the incessant bloodletting and pulling Iraq back from the brink.In The Spymaster of Baghdad: A True Story of Bravery, Family, and Patriotism in the Battle Against ISIS, longtime international correspondent and former New York Times Baghdad bureau chief Margaret Coker vividly brings to life the story of Abu Ali al-Basri and his secretive al-Suquor (“the Falcons”) intelligence unit and their unrelenting quest to bring peace and security to their war-ravaged nation. Weaving together the story of al-Basri and Harith and Munaf al-Sudani, two patriotic brothers under his loyal command, Coker unveils a remarkable Iraqi counter-terrorism success story, one constantly fraught with unimaginable risk, danger and unabashed heroism.--There certainly has been no shortage of ink spilled on the Iraq War and its far-flung ramifications. It surely ranks as one of the most written-about events of the twenty-first century to date. And though there are assuredly some notable exceptions – the late Anthony Shadid's Night Draws Near comes to mind – the vast majority of that aforementioned ink has been penned from an unabashedly American perspective and point of view. While it does makes sense, the war was a thoroughly American endeavor after all, the coverage leaves out the most crucial component: the Iraqis themselves – the more than 40 million people who have borne the brunt of the consequences since 2003.Throughout The Spymaster of Baghdad an Iraqi-centric focus imbues the pages from beginning to end and represents perhaps its most distinctive feature. It was by design. Coker says as much herself. "Ultimately, my aim with this book," she writes in the author's note, "is to recalibrate Iraq's history away from one that until now has centered on the Americans' sins, suffering, and victories and to illuminate the admirable role that Iraqis have played and the sacrifices they have made on behalf of their country and the world in the war on terror."Publishers Weekly picks up on this theme as well in their succinct review of the book. "[I]t is Coker's focus on the resilience and bravery of Iraqis who are leading the fight to rebuild their country that lifts this book above other accounts of the war on terror."--As the title suggests, The Spymaster of Baghdad focuses the attention on Iraq's nearly two-decade-long counter-terrorism struggle.Coker traces this cruel battle from the early days of al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq when it was founded and led by the Jordanian-born street tough Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. She leads readers through the terror group's subsequent iterations over the years, more violent at each evolution, before it reached its depraved apex with the rise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his Islamic State caliphate.In this Iraqi war on terror, the small-scale unit of dedicated men that comprised Abu Ali al-Basri's Falcons intelligence cell would set their sights on the fanatical Sunni jihadis and former Baathists who were actively tearing Iraq asunder, bombing after vicious bombing.Coker relays much of the Sunni discontent at their abruptly changed world and their collective resentment that fueled so much of the insurgency through the tangled story of Abrar al-Kubaisi. An aspiring but troubled chemist, al-Kubaisi precipitously descends further and further towards the path of radicalization and sectarian bigotry as the years of war wear painfully on for her and her family.Al-Kubaisi eventually leaves her family and attempts to join ISIS before ultimately hatching her own terror plot. Coker takes readers behind the scenes as the Falcons rush to stop the diabolical conspiracy before it comes to a deadly fruition.--Despite the Falcons notable victories, however, by the middle of 2014 ISIS found itself at its strongest state in its bloody history. Coker lays out a number of factors for this: American troops had withdrawn from Iraq several years earlier at the end of 2011, the still-fledgling Iraqi government was increasingly viewed as divisive and antagonistic by its Sunni citizenry. Furthermore, the raging civil war in neighboring Syria provided ISIS with much-needed sanctuary and a buoy of resources.It was then, in June 2014, that the terror army decided to make its move.As ISIS maniacally rampaged across the country, taking city after city in quick succession and with Baghdad firmly in the group's crosshairs, the government of Iraq and its new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi found themselves desperate for anything to stunt their momentum and reverse the existential threat they posed.Near this time, after a particularly ugly bombing in his hometown enclave of Sadr City, Harith al-Sudani, a disillusioned college dropout, volunteered for an unthinkable mission and set into action spy chief Abu Ali al-Basri’s audacious and ingenious plan to protect Baghdad and its environs from the terror onslaught.For years al-Basri knew they needed eyes and ears within the enemy's ranks to truly grasp the group and gather a better picture of how it operated in order to defeat it. It wasn’t until al-Sudani stepped forward, however, that the Falcons were able to truly infiltrate ISIS and work against the terror group from the inside out.Coker's evocative retelling of this dangerous 16-month-long undertaking highlights The Spymaster of Baghdad, bringing together the book's three main characters in their quest to rid Iraq of its greatest nemesis. It was a campaign that would ultimately become regarded as one of Iraq's greatest successes in its years-long battle against ISIS.In their own review, Kirkus Reviews writes the mission underscored "that Iraqi competence and heroism were essential to its victory over terrorism." They're right. It was the competence of Abu Ali al-Basri and the heroism of Harith al-Sudani, along with the entirety of the Falcons intelligence unit, and other unknowns like them behind the scenes who worked tirelessly, knowing all too well the consequences of failure, in the dark shadows of Iraq's war on terror.

A brilliantly researched and narrated true story of an elite Iraqi intelligence unit, the Falcons, and one of their greatest exploits: placing one of their agents into the hierarchy of ISIS at a time when ISIS was attempting to take over their country. Unlike much of the corrupt security bureaucracy in Iraq, the Falcons prided themselves on their professionalism and systematic assembly of evidence. The book focuses on a series of individuals -- heroes, martyrs and traitors -- and places their stories in the context of their own family histories. Margaret Coker does an extraordinary job of grounding her subjects in Iraqi society, and her accounts of actual intelligence operations ring absolutely true. This book is a reality-based thriller. Although the historical events are real, I was struck by the absence of Iran, Sistani, and the Shii militias in confronting the ISIS threat in its earliest days. She glosses over that part of the story (as do the American media and lots of others) and limits the story to the official Iraqi army and intelligence agencies, and indirectly their American military colleagues. The Iranian intervention is a different dimension, but it was a critical part of that eventful time. But never mind. Coker has her hands full in weaving a great tale that, among other things, humanizes her Iraqi subjects and discovers heroism and sacrifice in an era that most Americans know only as grim defeat and treachery.